Musicians under the Spanish Sun

Parc Güell exists, once again, thanks to our favorite Catalan architect - Antoni Gaudi.  This parc is full of vendors, tourists, diagonally-leaning pillars, AND...musicians. 
These musicians are out of the ordinary: they are talented, they play wonderfully BIZARRE instruments, and they are extremely beautiful people, physically.  Pretty sounds played by pretty people.

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Awesome.  And the same guy, from a closer angle.

 And lastly, this guy in a cave-like area.  I don't know what he's playing, but it's wonderful (and so is his smile, when you give him some euros or centimes).

GaudiLand

Thanks to Antoni Gaudi's insanely innovative and bizarre architecture, visiting Barcelona is like walking through a Guillermo del Toro movie set - everything is beautiful, eerie, incredible, fantastical.  To me, his buildings are so strange and differently beautiful that, when I look at them, I am filled with confusion and disbelief.
Get ready for a torrent of photographs here, because I could not stop click-clicking away...

 Not just any old apartment building.
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 Park Guell

 y Park Guell

y one more de Park Guell.
Now, all of the following pictures are of la Sagrada Familia.  It is so overwhelming that it deserves many pictures.
First, the outside:

Doesn't this look like leaves, or earth,from far away? Actually, here I am looking up at the archway, and this is all carved and enormous.  Try to pick out people, creatures...you can even spot some stained glass if you look very hard.

And now, look at the inside (!!!!!!!!!!!!)

It is so full of light...you feel more outdoors when you are in this building than when you are out of it. It is like being in a vast elvin forest, full of tall, thin, white trees and bright sunlight. It also feels like being in a huge but elegant skeleton.

O, to be Circus-Worthy!

My fellow mime's copine is a first year student at L'ENACR - L'Ecole Nationale des Arts du Cirque.  Thanks to this connection, I heard about the second year 'circus school' students' trimester show.  The students use their training to come up with their own personal performance piece.


It has been too long since I last stepped inside a circus tent.
And there is nothing quite like it.
I was elated before, during, and after the show.
Oh, how it made me want to 'run away and join the circus'... (Doesn't everybody want to do that?)
Of course, in order to run away and join the circus, you need the skills.  And it's not easy.  I played the role of Gasping Audience Member during this, because I was constantly amazed at the talent these second year students already have.
Take a look at all of these short clips (no, really, please, all of them)

I don't have good circus vocabulary, but here is a student twirling around in what seems to be a giant metal hula hoop - and it's beautiful.

This is a short section of a very smart, slap-stick filled scene involving a fight over a cup of tea.  They perfectly incorporated the objects, along with many roulades and portées.

I have absolutely no idea what this is called, but it is exquisite.

This 'balancoire' finale was epic.  The flip you see at the end is just an example of the many incredibly impressive jumps.  And most of the time, the men actually landed right back on the balancoire beam! Or flipped their way on over to the other side! Or switched places with another jumper mid-air!
I managed to survive this show, despite all of my gasping.

3.5 Hrs of (French) Shakespeare

On Monday I finally went to La Comedie Francaise, and saw Les Joyeuses Commeres de Windsor, par William Shakespeare.  Not only was it Shakespeare, but it was in French.  It takes a great actor to clearly communicate across that double barrier!  And great they were. 

Beforehand, I got lost and found myself in some kind of  modern "garden" - it was full of small posts, green lights, and underground rivers.  I am still confused by this place, and must go back!

 The entrance to La Comedie Francaise, and the eager audience waiting outside. 

This comedy was clearly portrayed thanks to the actors' use of their BODIES.  Every single character had a precise (and hilarious) way of moving and speaking.  I guffawed many a time and was thrilled by the amount of physicality, slapstick, etc. 
All in all....in a word, inspirational!  :)

The Performer with the Perfect Stage

I have never seen any street performer quite as succesful as this one.
His performance, which invoves only him and a soccer ball, is très impressive.
He also has managed to find himself the perfect spot to perform his routine, on top of a hill, with the most perfect view behind him.
The tourists love him, and so do the locals.  His performance is so thrilling, in fact, that afterwards the big crowd all stands in line to shake his hand.  Most street performers get 10 cents per audience member, if anything, but he gets at least a 5 euro bill.
I have been to the sacrée cœur steps many times, and he is always there, and I'm always enthralled.
Here are three short clips:

Turn Your Head On Its Side

My first outdoor mime-spotting of the season occured last Sunday in the Latin Quarter right near St. Michel. 
Unfortunately, I was silly enough to film this sideways...so, follow these instructions and enjoy:
1. Imagine your left ear is being tugged downwards, so that it almost touches your left shoulder.
2. Breathe in, breathe out.
3. Watch the mime, and pay attention to the body isolations.  He really looks like he is a rotating toy.

Magenia Mouche

If you do not parle francais, you do not know what these words mean...and even if you do parle francais, you might not.  Mouche means fly - bzz bzzz, slurp, bzzz, slap! 
Magenia, however, is not a french word.  It means "dream" in Polish.  This semester I am attending le Studio Magenia, run by and taught by Ella Jaroszewicz.  Above you see the stairs leading to the miming studio.  I am blogging, today, about my performance of La Mouche.

Currently, we are exploring mime and 'le theatre corporel' by studying the way animals move and act.  This week we worked on the fly and the ant.
The fly is innocent - it buzzes around, trying only to eat and live its life.  And yet it encounters cruelty at every turn.  We were given 20 mins to discover our "mouche" before each performing in turn for the class.

My mouche:  I start off as a fly, in search for food.  I find some and eat so much that i topple onto my back.  My stomach contracts as hunger starts knawing again.  I buzz around and see something delicious. Transition to slow/sexy woman, preparing her coffee - she picks up a glass, pours her coffee, inhales.  Transition back to la mouche, who decides to land on the glass's edge before diving in to the delicious beverage.  She swims, slurping a little here and there, thoroughly enjoying herself.  Woman now sticks a straw in the glass and stirs vigorously - Mouche is startled and buzzes helplessly before being stirred deep into the muck, up into the straw, and finally dying of suffocation.

Feedback: Shift your body weight towards most important object (towards the full pot of coffee, not towards empty glass).  Make sure the fly and the human move in completely different ways (for example, the fly buzzes quickly, frantically, while the woman undulates slowly).  Take more time on the death of the fly - let it be both horrific and delicate. 

Strange Ways to Have Fun

I must, once again, blog about Le 104.  Have I mentioned yet that it is wonderful?
Not only does it have a Tim Burton-esque manege, but it also has a beautiful bookstore, a magnificent cheap thrift/antique store, a playground, and art exhibits. 
Most importantly, the 104 offers many strange ways to have fun :  you can enter a big clear sack and withstand a simulated snow storm.  You can get lost in a cardboard maze.  You can get on a strange conveyorbelt ride. 
WATCH:

A conveyor belt of children.  What is there to this ride, where is the enjoyment? ...I suppose it's all in the experience.  ...learn what it would be like to be assembled in a factory.  This ride is all about self-inspection -  in fact, large mirrors are slowly lowered down, closer and closer to you, as you ride along. 

In the lower level, have fun running through a winding cardboard maze. 

Un Manege Etrange

The 104 is a very strange, and yet very wonderful, place.  It is hard to describe:  it is at once a playground, an art gallery, a theme park, a place for experiments... One of its strange rides is the Manège Carré.  It is a sort of sombre merry-go-round, and also a strange machine, an artistric contraption.  The familiar manege music doesn't play - all we can hear is the grinding and screeching of un-oiled metal (and, of course, the un-oiled children riding this beast).

The animal/machines include a fish, a buffalo, and many insects.  Take a look (and listen to) this thing in action! ...

Wow. Kids get to have the most fun.  More on strange ways to have fun at the 104, très bientôt.

une petite exposition interactive

While exploring the Montmartre area, with all of its little cobbled streets, one is bound to run into many small art galleries.  I ran into one such gallery recently. 

 Not only are there pictures on the walls, but you can also look at more photographs in the dangling picture-viewers.

 No doubt this has been done before, but that does not take away from its awesomeness.  I love this sort of thing because as an audience member, you really feel like you are interacting with the art.  You get tangled in its ribbons and touch it.

 Two seem to have been stolen!

 The hallway, le couloir, was full of mirrors on either side, which was artful in and of itself.